Frost may have been Nehru's favourite poet, but behind the bamboo thicket, Chairman Mao's militant verse still evidently holds sway. Exactly a decade after New Delhi and Beijing reopened diplomatic channels to start the long march towards settling the border disputes that had led to the 1962 conflict, the Chinese set the dragon among the pigeons by intruding into the inhospitable waste of the Sumdorong Chu valley in Arunachal Pradesh a few kilometres inside the McMahon Line.

The sudden and unexpected move by Beijing left South Block with its tail in a chink. The intrusion came less than a week before an official Indian delegation was scheduled to hold the seventh round of discussions on the ticklish border issue in Beijing. Curiously, the subject was brushed aside by the Chinese at the talks as if it was of little consequence and the Indian delegation returned with the realisation that it had not pushed the Chinese on their claim that the intrusion was north of the McMahon Line.

Then followed a confusing game of Chinese checkers with the Arunachal chief minister announcing that the Chinese had constructed a helipad in Wandung in the Sumdorong Chu area - a statement that was promptly denied by External Affairs Minister Shiv Shanker in Parliament. Barely a week later, his deputy, K.R. Narayanan, an old China hand, contradicted Shiv Shanker's stand by admitting that the Chinese had built a helipad in the area.

Since then, South Block has clamped a tight lid on the issue with neither the ministers nor senior officials willing to discuss the subject except to say that "it is a hot potato". Initially, the hysteria generated in the press and Parliament had indicated that the Chinese had moved about 7 km inside the McMahon Line, the line of actual control which Beijing has so far refused to acknowledge except for the unspoken agreement that the Line would not be violated by either side. Later, this was amended to "2 or 3 km" inside the Line.

Analysts have suggested that the strategy behind the Chinese game plan is to re-establish their fictional claims in the eastern sector. Chinese maps have till recently shown some 12,000 sq km in the eastern sector as belonging to them, a claim that has recently been expanded to 90,000 sq km - which includes almost all of Arunachal."

Beijing has made it clear on any number of occasions that it was sidetracking the issue that concerns India the most - the post-1962 Chinese occupation of 14,500 sq miles of Indian territory in Aksai Chin in the western sector - to concentrate its diplomatic fire on the eastern sector. The Chinese made this abundantly clear during the last round of talks in New Delhi last January.

Earlier, Beijing had refused to grant a visa to an MP from Arunachal to attend a UN meeting in Beijing and followed it up by lodging a strong protest against the participation of Arunachal in the New Delhi Asian Games. The strongest indication came from Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister Liu Shuqing who told visiting Indian journalists in June that the 1962 conflict had "resolved some irregularities in the western sector but not in the eastern sector".

There is, however, another possible reason for South Block keeping mum on the issue (Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi described it as "not abnormal") and the behaviour of the Indian delegation to the latest round of talks. Intelligence sources said that there could be some confusion about the precise positioning of the McMahon line (which has only been drawn on a map, never demarcated), and that the area the Chinese have occupied may be cause for genuine dispute because the Sumdorong river has been changing course, moving north.

Since 1984, India has established a "seasonal" observation post in the Wandung area on the south bank of the river. A mixed complement of 10 intelligence officials and soldiers would make the ardous two-day walk from the permanent base camp at Tawang after collecting their pay on July 1 and occupy the primitive hut they had constructed to observe Chinese movements across the river till October, when the weather drove them back to civilisation. But with the river changing course, what may at one stage have been the north bank could now be the south bank.

Thus, on July 3, when the Indian observation team arrived at their post, they found the place occupied by about 100 Chinese soldiers and government agents; 4 km further north was another camp of about 500 Chinese soldiers. They had constructed a jeepable road right up to the camp and built a helipad. The Indian team observed three helicopters which did a total of 39 landings and take-offs in one day.

As matters stand, there is little the Indian army can do. Between Tawang and the Chinese camp is a desolate, windswept area with no access for vehicles. Short of an air drop, which would be suicidal with no logistic support, the Government is faced with a fait accompli. That may well explain why the Government, after the initial hullaballoo, is now anxious to play down the issue.

The Government may also have learnt the lesson the Chinese intended: that India is not in a position to demand concessions in the western sector while conceding nothing in the east. But of one thing there is no doubt: the fracas has resulted in Sino-Indian relations taking a "great leap backwards".

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